"clergy", as in "priest"?
or is the operative phrase "some sort"?
I did my best to make it clear that I did not mean "priest" and that I was
not in any way clear in my mind what their status was. Moreover, I
suggested that I have come to doubt what the status of most clerics was in
the early middle ages, though I am quite certain that some were formally
ordained and those did not include women.
>The canonesses often seem to have some attachment to a
Cathedral
i believe that the only women i've ever come across
(doesn't mean much) "attached" to a "Cathdral" have
been:
I thank you for your examples, which are interesting in themselves.
All the canonesses whom I have encountered (which may also be open to
question) lived in community. A lot of them occupied old autonomous houses
(like Jouarre) that had simply adopted the canoness rule. But others like
the canonesses of Laon were probably attached to the cathedral in some way
and drew a lot of hostile attention from Yvo of Chartres. Joan Morris,
"Against God and Nature," makes a stronger case than I would make for their
clerical functions with a number of archival references. I remain content
to say that what references I know seem to put some communities on a par
with the cathedral canons in some of the liturgical functions. Again, the
most famous and readily accessible is Jacques de Vitry, Historia
Occidentalis.
any other examples of "reclusae" living on churches known
out there???
The anchorites enclosed in the church walls were probably living, like
Julian of Norwich in comfortable little establishments built against the c
hurch wall with a single entrance into the church itself rather than to the
outside world. In Holland and Belgium, it is common to see shops and houses
built in similar fashion, using the church walls as part of the structure
(though they open to the street).
I repeat, I do not want to overdo this but there are a lot of things we
don't know and I think it is very worth our while to look at these
unexplained situations as opportunities to question our assumptions and even
the claims of some of our sources.
>
Jo Ann
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